Something Old, Something New {Friday}

{Something Old}

Last weekend was the perfect weekend for a picnic! It was probably one of the last weekends of the year warm enough to sit outside in the grass for an entire afternoon. I met up with some friends in the Sheep’s Meadow area of Central Park, and we each brought something to share — cheese and sausages, a savory tart, and some delicious eclairs for dessert! We thought about bringing a bottle of wine to sip on as well, but I’m glad we decided against it — there were park rangers writing up tickets for public drinking left and right on that day (I didn’t realize it was illegal)! I have many fond memories of sitting with friends in this spot and sharing food and good conversation (and wine — but don’t tell the park rangers!).

{Something New}

With the swift arrival of fall comes one of my favorite past times: cutting the tags off the new fall clothes that I’ve been slowly buying over the past few months! Today, I’m debuting my new pair of Frye Engineer boots which I bought in an attempt to be more practical this year. Even though our winter was mild last year, I still wore my ballet flats far too often resulting in chilly feet all the time. This year, I’ll be rocking my boots with pants and with dresses and tights!

Have a lovely weekend!

Top photo by Christopher Schoenbohm via Flickr

Something Old, Something New {Friday} (or Monday)

Better late than never! Here’s what was going on last week…

{Something Old}

I finally updated the music on my iPhone this week, and re-discovered No Doubt’s Return of Saturn! I was the BIGGEST No Doubt fan back in the day — I mean, I still am, really. But I’m thoroughly enjoying jamming out to old favorite tunes like “Simple Kind of Life” and “Artificial Sweetener.” And I may or may not be wishing that I had pink hair.

{Something New}

I did something completely new last week that I had never done before — painted a wall! I knew that I wanted to give our bedroom a new color, and decided that I wanted to do it myself. Frank was more than happy to let me have at it — he’s done the other paint jobs in our place since he used to work summers painting apartments, but when I arrived home to find that he had conveniently pushed back the furniture and set up all of the supplies for me, I knew it was my turn. It was a fun project, but definitely a workout. I’m really happy with how it turned out though, and it brings a little bit of sophistication into the room despite our mismatched furniture (everything in time).

Something Old, Something New {Friday}

Ok, so I definitely didn’t start off this weekly feature on the right foot, since I promptly ignored it for two weeks after I started it. Let’s give this another go…

{Something Old}

New York is still hot as hell these days, but I whipped up an old favorite meal as a raindance-like plea for Fall to arrive: roasted butternut squash and chickpeas over quinoa, topped with crumbles of goat cheese! It’s a really simple and quick recipe, and totally worth turning on the oven for.

{Something New}

I took my first trip out to the Hamptons last weekend with a good friend who rented a place out there for the summer. We spent most of the weekend relaxing and leafing through September issues of magazines (and making shopping lists, naturally), and of course eating. It was amazing to see the enormous mansions that line the road to the beach — some of them have hedges so high and driveways so long that you can barely even see the house! The weekend felt so much longer than usual because there was really nothing that we had to do and nowhere we had to be. That’s the perfect weekend in my eyes!

Have a great weekend!

Top photo by bionicgrrrl via Flickr

Something Old, Something New {Friday}

I’ve been trying to think of a little feature that I could do on a weekly basis that would keep me thinking and writing. I think I’ve come up with a good one, and I’m going to attempt to implement it starting today! Each Friday, I’ll share two things that happened during my week: one “old” and one “new.” The Something Old could be anything from catching up with an old friend to making a classic family recipe for dinner — think the kind of “old” that gives you warm fuzzies, not back pain! My Something New will run the gamut from something new that I learned that week to a new place I’d never been to before. The point of all this is to end the week on a happy and optimistic note! So, here we go…

{Something Old}

I had the pleasure of getting together with one of my best friends from college early this week for a bottle of wine after work! M and I are both Francophiles, and you may remember that she and I ran around France together for a week last year. We met up at The Bourgeois Pig, a great little wine bar in the East Village that offers a superb 1/2 price bottle night on Monday and Tuesday. I always enjoy my time with M because she’s one of those people with a contagious laugh who is so easy to hang out with. Sometimes there is nothing better than spending a few hours with an old friend!

{Something New}

I tried a Barre method class at my gym for the first time — and hoooooo baby were my muscles burning afterward! The class I took is called vBarre, and it combines ballet methods which are done at the barre with some Pilates-esque moves. The toughest part was using the glide board, which is a slippery plastic board about the length of a yoga mat. It looked like so much fun in the videos I saw online, but it’s really hard to do at first! Once you get the hang of it, you can get going pretty fast. I’m definitely looking forward to my next class!

Happy weekend, everyone! What made you happy this week?

Top photo by arvindgrover via Flickr